


Sweet Little Lies

by cartouche



Series: Turn the Page [2]
Category: Bright Young Things, Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Developing Relationship, Eventual Happy Ending, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst, M/M, Period Typical Attitudes, Post-World War II, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2020-09-30 16:44:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20450309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cartouche/pseuds/cartouche
Summary: Repatriation is slow, and a year after he’d finally read those words, those wonderful, terrifying words (War over stop. Nazi forces surrendered stop. Await further instructions stop.) he’s still in Paris, watching the remains of the French nation attempt to rebuild their once great city.  When he can’t stand it any longer, he flees into the countryside.He runs into them quite by chance, something stirring in his memory, round sunglasses perched at the tip of a nose,green bowler hats. The marketplace continues to bustle around him as he stops dead in his tracks, something familiar from a lifetime ago settling in the back of his mind, and there's a vague recognition in his eyes from that time on the air ship. The music playing loud, weaving through dim lights and silhouettes and champagne glasses. He'd slipped away, only to find a friend of Nina's outside.Miles. But you can call me sweetheart, if you’re good, he'd said, eyes shining. They'd stood outside and smoked, talked, kisses pressed to his cheeks and the occasional outrageous comment made until his- hisfriendhad carried him away. It had been simplymagical.





	1. False moon! False moon! O waning moon!

**Author's Note:**

> based on an odd mixture of book and film canon. in the book that last scene with Adam coming back to Nina doesn’t even happen and Miles needs a better ending so …
> 
> basically the _Behemoth_ is so long that I've split it into two (which might turn into 3) chapters, which also helps to not keep you guys waiting! hope you enjoy the first part of it
> 
> Warnings for very, very slight homophobia as Ginger comes to terms with himself. 
> 
> Miles quotes [Endymion](https://www.bartleby.com/143/30.html) by Oscar Wilde

When the war is over, Ginger is tired. 

He’d thought Ceylon was bad, with the heat and the bugs and the perpetual boredom of waiting for something, _anything_ to happen. It hadn't been like that this time. Instead it was months, drawn out into _years _of sitting in muddy trenches, tipping fetid water out of boots, telegramming back the latest names of the dead who still laid around him, the broken, pale bodies of thousands of young men who would never see their families again. So much blood that his uniform was permanently dyed with it, a deep, rusty brown to remind him of all those lost along the way. It couldn't have been further away from London, from the days of extravagant parties’ night after night, and the carefree laughter that had infected the rich and young. How foolish it all seemed now, staying up to watch the sunrise and outrageous costumes and defiance of every social convention on how one should behave. Like a dream he could barely remember having.

Nina, he’s sure, had received his telegram over a year ago. The one which said, “_The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your husband, Captain Edward D. Littlejohn has been reported missing in action since Eleven April over France_.” He wonders vaguely if she’d cried, if she’d cared at all, or if she’d been quietly grateful. 

The transport trucks take them as far as the ruins of Paris, and then they have to wait. 

-

Repatriation is slow, and a year after he’d finally read those words, those wonderful, _terrifying_ words (_War over stop. Nazi forces surrendered stop. Await further instructions stop._) he’s still in Paris, watching the tattered remains of the French nation climb out of their hiding places and attempt to rebuild their once great city. There had been joy, of course, parties in the street with meagre celebrations of stolen wine bottles, dusty tins of peaches, and jam spread thinly over hard tack, the last surviving gramophones wheezing out melodies from a previous life. But then the reality had set in, covered in brick dust and the crying of orphans, and when Ginger couldn’t stand it any longer, he fled into the countryside. Not that it was _better_ there, landscaped scarred with a matted labyrinth of trenches and craters, but at least the sun shone, and the birds sang, and the first vestiges of grass had begun to heal over the mud and blood-soaked fields. He has a suitcase stuffed full of French francs and US dollars and cigarettes, and the freedom of a new country to explore. 

Normandy is still littered with sandbags and barbed wire, but there's a cheerfulness too, even as the local people break their backs to feed a ransacked Paris. No one says no to his money, and he's welcomed with a hospitality he hasn't experienced since … well, since Nina and her friends. And even that wasn't quite like _this_, a complete openness free of social norms and expectations. No hidden motives and no urgency in any of their actions. 

He gains a smattering of freckles working on a farm, beads of sweat soaking his shirt in the blazing sun, and in the evenings, he watches the sky turn violet with something rich and red in a glass by his side. 

-

The seasons slide gracefully into autumn, and he barely notices, still wandering the traumatised countryside. A family takes him in, and their giggling daughter teaches him better French with bright sparkling eyes and lips stained with berry juice. He's English, but not an idiot, he can tell she likes him, can tell she'd be quite happy settling down with the lanky Englishman and his terrible accent left over from the war, a simple wedding, 3 kids, a little farm with an orchard, and waking up at 6am to collect the eggs. 

Ginger leaves them after a month and does an excellent job of ignoring the fat tears that slide down her soft cheeks. He kisses her forehead and wishes her luck, and with that he moves on. He can't do it forever, of course, but he'll bloody well do it as long as he can. At night the flashes of shells still light up under his eyelids.

He runs into them quite by chance, by the time the crisp leaves are being tugged off half-bare branches. A silhouette stirs up something in his memory, round sunglasses perched at the tip of a nose, the vibrancy of a duck-egg blue beret. _Green bowler hats_. The marketplace continues to bustle around him as he stops dead in his tracks, something familiar from a lifetime ago settling in the back of his mind, and there's a vague recognition in his eyes from that time on the air ship. The music playing loud, weaving through dim lights and silhouettes and champagne glasses. He'd slipped away, only to find a friend of Nina's outside. _Miles. But you can call me sweetheart, if you’re good_, he'd said, eyes shining. They'd stood outside and smoked, talked, kisses pressed to his cheeks and the occasional outrageous comment made until his- his _friend_ had carried him away. It had been simply _magical_. 

He pushes through the bundles of people, past the vegetable stalls, muttering apologies to the disgruntled customers he shoulders out of the way, desperate for something he can't quite describe. He loses them behind a group of loud mothers, and feels _it_ slip out of his grasp. He may never get it back. 

"Miles!" The tone of his voice is frankly pathetic, aching and longing, and several people turn to stare at him as he bursts through the crowd, and virtually tumbles to a halt at Miles' feet. There's a patently confused painted over those cherubic features, before his eyebrows raise and a flutter of understanding crosses his face. Ginger almost cries with relief. 

"Ginger?! It was Ginger wasn't it? Well, my goodness, fancy seeing you here darling. You look positively _dreadful_. I barely recognised you." 

He bites back the croak in his throat and clamps down on the sudden urge to fling his arms around the man just for remembering his name. 

"_Miles_." He feels almost giddy. For the first time in months something feels right. If he were the sort of man to believe in such nonsense as Fate, he'd be thanking his lucky stars right about now. 

Blue eyes flicker nervously over the few people staring at them still, and as he leans in, his warm breath tickling at Ginger's ear. "Well, actually it's Michel now, _chérie_, at least out here in public." 

It takes him a moment too long to grasp the implication, and then it hits him. Nina had been most upset of course, bawling for an entire afternoon at the sudden loss of her friend, and Ginger had done his best to comfort her. It had been a most awkward affair, and one that makes him inexplicably sad to remember. He's sure his nod is barely visible through the shakes that seem to have taken a hold of his body, trembling like the aspic jelly his mother had once served at Christmas dinner. 

"Ah yes, Michel, of course " Miles' eyes sparkle with a devilish glee, and he leans back, positively _beaming_ at Ginger. 

"What are you doing out here? I thought you'd have scarpered back over the channel to dear Nina's arms after that dreadful war was over." A shadow of something sweeps briefly over Miles' face, the dark clouds left behind after a storm, and if Ginger had blinked, he would've missed it. "How is she? I do miss her _terribly_ sometimes; we could do with one of her parties livening up the place." 

"I … I- I don't know." It's shameful really, a husband running away from his responsibilities, not even a telegraph to let her know he was alive, gallivanting around the French countryside, unwilling to be sent home. 

A thick silence hangs in the air for a moment, despite the bustle of the market around them, Miles' expression unreadable before he brightens again. "Never mind all that, I suppose, what are _you_ doing in Giverny of all places? Not that it isn't a darling little town, of course, but it is dreadfully _dull_. All those wonderful _artistes_ fled after the first war, apparently, and I don't think it quite lives up to its reputation anymore." 

"Travelling, just … wandering about really. Adjusting, I suppose you might call it." The smile that curves his lips is hollow and tired. It's as close to the truth as Miles needs to know, for now. 

"I'm sure we can assist with a little adjusting, can't we _mon coeur_?" That's when he notices her. "Do say you'll stay for a while, Ginger. Having some fresh blood around here might be just what the doctor ordered." 

He has his arm through a young woman's, who Ginger is introduced to as Amélie, and if he wasn't scarred and aching and tired, he might have flashed her a bright smile, raised his brows, lowered his voice a sultry tone or two. She's beautiful, almost as tall as Miles' and athletically built, with wild auburn hair and eyes as green as the large rock sparkling upon her ring finger. 

He blinks as she pushes her hand towards him and tries not to choke as he admires the stone, set in a delicate band. Miles had always been so … _flamboyant_. Even now a deep shade of pink graced his lips, lips that twisted into a wry smile as his eyes flicked a _knowing_ look at his female companion, one Ginger could never hope to decode.

Maybe the war changed people. It had certainly changed him. Maybe Miles really had settled down, happily married in the French countryside. His mind drags up the recently discarded memories of a farmer's daughter, her hands so delicate as they wrapped around his, leading him through fields of wheat and laughing freely at the expanse of the blue sky.

Maybe Ginger should have as well.

"Congratulations, old boy! Bloody _congratulations_, I say!" He reaches out to shake Miles' hand heartily, all the while trying not to think of Nina. She'd been a vision on their wedding day, and yet Ginger couldn't bring himself to feel any excitement. Only dread. Did Miles feel the same? Had he felt the cold stone sinking further into the pit of his stomach as he slid the ring on her finger, bit back the disappointment at a dry peck at the altar, faltered as he'd laid her down in their marital bed and stumbled his way through consummation. 

Ginger can't imagine Miles faltering at anything. 

Amélie murmurs something too quietly to hear, and Miles' laughs, a genuine, musical sound, the kind that Ginger barely remembers from _before_. Back then they'd all laughed like that, not a care in the world. 

"Indeed, darling, congratulations all round. Which of course, means a _celebration_." The word is still tainted with images of rumbling tanks and parades down the _Champs-Elysees_, but he pushes those memories down with a faltering smile. Trust Miles to throw a party at a moment’s notice. Trust Miles to still be living in the past. "We'll go out tonight. Paint the town. Say you'll come Ginger; it will absolutely be a _bore_ if you don't. Besides we have so very much to catch up on. Say you'll come, darling, pretty please, for me?" There are eyelashes batted at him, fluttering enticingly as a hand comes to rest warmly on his forearm, contact burning through the thin linen of his shirt. Amélie shoots Miles a warning look, and Ginger recoils bodily, away from the touch (and when had he last been _touched_ in any way other than the cold, sterile hands of nurses checking him over?) but his head is already nodding, mouth already forming the words, hands already pulling out his notebook and scribbling down the address and directions dripping from Miles' lips. 

He stands there for too long after they've gone, and he swears he can still feel a hand print on his arm.

-

That evening Miles drags him to what he describes as "the only lively place to get a drink in all of Normandy", and Ginger wonders how his personality has survived the last decade. The world is a very different place, but Miles Maitland is determined to make it remember the days of lavish parties and lascivious fun. He's introduced to a group of people whose names whirl round him so fast he giddily forgets them all instantly. There was a Victor maybe. A Giselle perhaps. He smiles at them all cordially as they tuck themselves into one of the dim booths in the far corner and buys everyone a round of drinks to endear himself to them. It doesn't work. They speak in rushed French and laugh at jokes he doesn't understand and cheers his health with a sideways glance that could only be described as _supercilious_. Miles, on the other hand, holds court, head of the table and centre of attention, and Ginger watches astonished as they hang off his every word and light his cigarettes for him. He should leave really, it's quite apparent he does not belong here, in this intimate group of old friends, and he would, if it were not for Miles. He's enticing, entrancing, and more than that, is some remnant of the old-world that Ginger had all but forgotten. The last thing he has left to remind him of those few blissful months in London. 

He should go, but the way Miles is pressed up against him, a dramatic lean leaving his head on Ginger's shoulder, soft curls tickling his cheek, one hand gesturing broadly, describing his tale in winding trails of cigarette smoke and flashes of teeth. He smells intoxicating, ash and musk and something decidedly _sweet_ underneath it all. Bergamot, he realises belatedly. It's bergamot. 

"I hope you haven't fallen asleep, Ginger darling. You're supposed to be the _life_ of the party after all." Miles twists with the grace of a snake, chin propping itself where his head had been a moment before, heavy lidded eyes full of expectancy. 

"N-No, no, not at all." Stammering was such an ugly trait, and one his father had done his damnedest to beat out of Ginger when he was young. What a disappointment he was, all these years later, tongue still tripping over itself in its haste. "I really am terribly sorry for not being …" Not being what? Confident? Handsome? Livelier? Less of a wet drip? For not being one of these bright young things sat around the sticky wood of the table, able to talk with ease, able to fit in, able to laugh? 

"What _ever _are you apologising for? Oh, aren't you simply _precious_, Ginger." There's a soft kiss pressed to his cheek and with that Miles turns back, conversation returning with ease. Ginger excuses himself on the pretence of collecting more bottles of whatever is drinkable from the bar, and pretends desperately that his heart isn't throbbing painfully, heavy with a memory of something that never happened. 

"Darling you simply must stay!" Miles says when he returns, drunk and pleading, eyes lighting up at the prospect. The room blurs slightly, fuzzy halos distorting around the old gas lamps. Ginger can't tell if he means in the bar or forever. It sounds like both. "It'll be such a _bore_ if you go." 

There's nothing for him in London. He doesn't think he could go back if he tried. Civvy street was as far off a dream as returning to a pristine London filled with raucous parties and pulsing nightlife. The remnants of the war echoing in his memories remind him that Nina will be better off without him. He’s already been _dead_ two years to her. 

And so, he stays.

-

It takes Ginger 3 days, a run in with a policeman and a rather subdued party to understand what is really going on. 

Amélie flashes her ring and they passionately kiss when the uniformed man questions them bluntly, stating the rumours that have been swirling around the town. And yet later that night, in the smoky drawing room of Miles' home, with the curtains closed carefully, he watches the way she kisses down the neck of a girl giggling in her lap, hands trailing luxuriously to indecent places, soft and feather light. He watches the way Miles hangs off one of the tall, brooding men in the corner, whispering into his ear and pressing himself against him in a way that makes Ginger blush and avert his gaze. 

Even his alcohol addled mind can understand that.

They are each other's protection. Best friends keeping all the prying eyes and wagging tongues at bay. 

She stares at him with open distrust, and he can't blame her. He's another potential leak, a crack in a bathtub already precariously dripping. None of them can afford him running off to the nearest police station. Miles' charms work, for the most part, soothing words chattered in French too fast for Ginger to understand, but her gaze is still wary for weeks. 

One day she offers him one of her cigarettes, thin and strong and acrid, and he gratefully accepts the olive branch with a soft smile. She nods at him and lights it and a tentative alliance is formed. 

-

Miles telephones for him one afternoon, and it’s all Ginger can do not to rush over immediately, but he simply has nothing to _wear_ to the dinner suggested in a devilishly demure tone. A handful of some worn-thin shirts and a couple of pairs of trousers, each one in a worse state than the next. Certainly nothing that could even pretend to be _evening wear_. The tailor in town stares at him in distaste as he hurries through, pulling out something sober and charcoal and double-breasted, which _nearly _fits, and the lovely lady who has been letting him stay in her spare room sews him a tie from a piece of old curtain, the thick silk hanging heavily around his throat. 

Miles greets him on the doorstep with a sweeping gaze, and Ginger can’t help the self-conscious flush that burns on his cheeks as Miles’ lips part and he _laughs_. 

“Now, now look here, Mil- _Michel_, it’s, well, it’s as good as I can get on short notice, damn it, and if it won’t do, then tell me rather than making me into a fool. You can always take Victor, or Alexandre or, damn it, whatever his name was. Or your- your _wife_!” 

“Oh _darling_,” Miles says, as he reaches out and smooths down Ginger’s parting, as his nimble fingers straighten out his tie and neaten his collar, as Ginger almost chokes at the coy gaze thrown up at him from beneath powdered lids. “We’re only _engaged_.” 

Oh. Right. 

“I think you look absolutely fetching, Ginger. It’s just …” He hesitates, eyes flicking downwards, and Ginger knows exactly what he’s referring to. “I didn’t realise it was the fashion of the day to have one's ankles on display.” The blush staining his cheeks deepens, and for a moment he wants nothing more than to curl up underneath an eider down and have his mother tell him everything is quite alright. 

“I didn’t exactly have time to make alterations, and besides the tailor’s has already done quite well out of me today, damn it. Perhaps if you’d given me a _little_ more warning, I could have-”

“And where’s the _fun_ in that, hm?” A slender finger taps the end of his nose before Miles’ arm snakes into his, pulling him close and beginning their stroll. “Life’s for _living_, darling, not for hemming pants.” The sun catches on the daring pearl drop hanging from one of Miles’ ears, and Ginger, briefly, wishes he lived like Miles. Untroubled, vivacious, always rushing off to the next most exciting thing without a care or concern in the world. But jealousy is an ugly face to wear, and so he trails along behind the other man, shoes scuffing on cobbled streets, squinting against the dying sunlight.

They dine at the nearest place that could, hesitantly, be called a restaurant, a little café that had survived the ravages of war._ Aux Cerises_. It's not exactly the Ritz, but it's pleasant enough, and Ginger relishes in having Miles alone, to himself, without his burdening entourage and their aloof words. It’s less of a show, a performance, when it’s just them, and conversation flows easily. Miles makes him try the _moules à la crème Normande_, and for once Ginger doesn’t mind the laugh it pulls out of the other man’s lips as his face screws up in displeasure. They stay there until the overtaxed waiter looks quite brassed-off by their antics, and when he places a wad of bills on the table to soothe the man’s irritation, he savours the unfettered look of surprise that plasters itself on Miles’ features. 

"You didn’t have to do that, you know.” Comes the muted response, minutes later when they’re back to strolling along the deserted lanes, arm in arm. Lamplight spills into the street from netted windows, and the world is uncharacteristically quiet. 

“Well, I believe it’s still the polite thing to do, isn’t it? The world hasn’t changed that much, and I- Well, you’ve shown me a jolly good time tonight _Michel_, so it felt only fair to, well, repay you in some way.” He nudges him gently with his shoulder. “Without you I would still be living in a world without garlic mussels, and that would be an absolute _travesty_, I assure you.” He’s aiming for something lighthearted, witty, even, if he were a witty sort of chap, but Miles stays subdued, and something bilious gnaws at his insides. “I say, Miles, are you quite alright?” 

There’s a long pause, and Ginger briefly considers that he might have done something _terrible_ and Miles will never speak to him again, and then, just like a switch has flicked on, he’s back smiling up at him, skipping ahead and spinning around like a whirling dervish, hands clapping gleefully. “Quite alright, dearest. Now what do you say to being rather _naughty_. We simply can’t part ways so early in the evening, how _boring_, so you shall have to find a way to entertain me, Ginger.” His eyebrows waggle suggestively. “What do you say to digging the old bottles of _Arpents du Solei_ out of the basement and drinking them before Louis finds out that I knew they were there all along?” He doesn’t refuse the offer.

-

Ginger's ill.

There's no two ways about it, despite his protestations that really, he's _fine_, and will be right as rain in a few days. He's ill, terribly so, burning with a fever but always shivering and cold, skin clammy with sweat and limbs aching for no good reason at all. 

He'd battled it out by himself for a while, hidden miserably in his lodgings, but after the third day Miles had become _suspicious_ and appeared in his room. 

_Mother will take care of you, darling_, he'd announced, with such certainty that Ginger knew there was no point in arguing. He might have tried a little harder than the feeble please he'd given, but he's sick, and that enough of an excuse for Miles to wrap him up in several layers and bustle him into one of the spare bedrooms hidden away in the sprawling cottage he and his friends inhabit. Miles lays cool flannels on his forehead and runs fingers through him lank hair and hums when he thinks Ginger is asleep, when he thinks he won't notice the low, sweet sounds. For the most part it's blissfully quiet, the occasional twittering bird, rustling leaves, plates being bumped in the sink as they're washed. He dozes fitfully, caught between his pounding head and thumping heart, and prays for it all to be over soon. Sunlight dapples the ceiling in the mornings and fades into rosy hues of peach and lavender in the evenings.

If he were to tell the whole truth, which he's inclined to do, with the fever addling his mind, he'd tell you he rather likes Miles fussing over him. He gets his full attention, every spectacular drop of it, and even if he can't see it, he's sure there are several people in the house rather irked that Miles is spending his time feeding Ginger creamy soup and reading aloud to him. It's nice, to feel cared for, looked after, and Miles does a good job of playing nurse, too good maybe.

He falls asleep with his head in Miles' lap most afternoons, but one day it's worse than usual, unbearable, hot and cold all at once, shaking and quivering, the light unbearable as it pricks needle-sharp at his eyes. 

"The fever's breaking, darling." He grunts, maybe, trying not to be cross at Miles' soft words, while squirming in pain. A cool hand skims over his cheeks, and he can't bring himself to be disgusted by the sheen of sweat he knows is coating him, that Miles is _touching_. All he can do is curl in on himself, squeeze his eyes tight shut, and wait. 

He must have fallen asleep at some point, because then he's waking up, stirring at the sound of soft noises. Miles' voice. He's speaking in gentle rhythmic cadences, liltingly sweet, and Ginger strains to make out the quiet words, stills his breaths, as though that will help. 

"_Yo__u cannot choose but know my love,_

_For he a shepherd's crook doth bear,_

_And he is soft as any dove,_

_And brown and curly is his hair_."

Fingers card softly through his fringe, pushing it away from his forehead, soothing. He feels vaguely better at least, less febrile and delirious, his body surprisingly still in contrast to the shaking that had wracked him for days. He cracks an eye open, sneaking glances up at Miles, afraid that he’ll stop if he realises Ginger is awake. Even without the fever he doesn’t feel _well_, and the dulcet tones are comfortingly hypnotic, comfortingly _familiar_, easing the last throes of the flu away. Miles is surprisingly bare faced, and even without a hint of make-up his lashes flutter long and dark across his cheek, lips faintly pink, hair a mess of curls that had once been neatly arranged. 

He’s beautiful. 

Ginger can see the toll he’s taken on him though, etched into the lines of worry marring his forehead and bruise-like shadows circling beneath his eyes. A cocktail of guilt and shame washes through him, unpleasantly cold - how selfish he’d been by making Miles take care of him! Forcing him to virtually abandon his life in favour of sleepless nights watching over him, early mornings filled with coughing and cool flannels, changing sheets and making soup. How unutterably self-centred. 

He stirs, convincingly sleepy, and the words stop sharply, as though not meant for waking ears. Ginger finds himself quite unable to look at the patient smile on Miles’ face as he pries open his eyes, stretches up and away from the other man’s lap, sits up on the mussed heap of bed covers. 

“Oh darling, you’re awake. I thought you were going to sleep _forever_.” The smile he forces on his lips in response is painful, taut and thin. Miles looks _tired_, he realises, and yet still delighted at the sight of Ginger sitting up. “You’ve been positively _delirious_ for days now, Amélie said we ought to take you to a hospital but I insisted on keeping you here. And look, you’re all the better for it.”

His voice comes out in a croak that he’s glad he can pass off as disuse and illness. Miles rushes to fetch him water, presses the glass to his lips and lets him sip weakly at it, like a useless child. “I would have been fine at the hospital, you shouldn’t have-”

“Nonsense.” The way he says it almost makes it sound like Miles thinks Ginger is silly for suggesting it in the first place. “Besides, it was too far to come and visit you properly, and I couldn’t have left you alone in that _beastly _place. You could barely say a word, you wouldn’t have survived a day on your own.” His eyes flick away, unreadable. 

They sit in silence. 

“I suppose my French is rather awful.” It’s feebly humorous, but enough to make Miles laugh, bodily, and Ginger watches him flop back onto the bed, still shaking with mirth. 

"Vrai, c'est _terrible_. Ils vous auraient tué pour votre accent." He looks at the other man blankly, brain whirring to catch up. He'd failed it in school, and it showed, the disappointed glares of the masters still haunting him decades later. Miles laughs again and repeats himself in English to save Ginger the trouble of translating. "Your accent, darling. They'dve shot you on the spot for butchering their precious language." 

"Quite." They're quiet again, but more companionably this time, and he tries to shake the last of the illness from his fuzzy head and inject some vim and vigour into himself. He glances down at himself, at the dishevelled, damp pyjamas, the haggard shape of his ribs beneath the fabric, the faint stain of sweat still clinging to his palms, and grimaces. "I say Miles, do you think I could borrow your shower before I head home. I don't think I'm fit to be seen in town in such a state." There's an ungainly snort, and Miles takes rather suddenly to studying his nails.

"Home? You mean that batty old lady who kept trying to come in and accost you? I told her you shan't be coming back." 

"You _what_?" Miles, he realises, might be quite mad. The smile he's given in response does nothing to curb the notion. 

"I told her you shan't be back darling. I had all your things brought here, and paid off your debts, and told her never to come back. She's awfully _nosy_. If she goes to the papers, I swear I'll take her to court." Perhaps he's still just ill, perhaps this is a bad dream, perhaps the flu has affected his hearing in some way, because it almost sounds like he's being _kidnapped_. 

"Miles, I-" Each word is slow, giving time for his brain to frantically scrabble around for some sort of response to this disastrous conversation. "I can't possibly live _here_." 

"Darling, why ever not?" Damn him. Damn him for looking so innocent, head cocked and smile faintly cherubic. Damn damn _damn_. 

"Well … Well I- I-" He doesn't really have a good enough excuse, and Miles looks smug enough that Ginger's inclined to believe he's already won this debate. "I can't intrude on yo-"

"Oh, we all want you here. Even Victor was a saint about it. He carried all your belongings up from town, you know. I think he's taken a shine to you." He can't imagine the dark, brooding fellow ever being amicable towards any outsiders. He can, however, imagine Miles with a pretty pout and big shining eyes convincing him to do all the heavy lifting. "You can have this room. And the rent's cheap. Hardly anything - I've added on a special discount on account of your being so _handsome_. You can even pay in kisses if you want." 

He sputters at that, feeling his pulse speed up unfairly, skyrocketing at Miles' laugh. He goes cold all over, like he's sick again, and his eyes won't move away from soft, rosy lips. 

"Only joking, angel. Look you've gone all pale, don't make yourself ill again, that would be dreadful. I'm sure you'll adore staying with us. It'll be _such_ a laugh. There is just one thing I need to ask you." 

Oh god, this is it. He's going to have to sleep with Miles to get a room. _Is that really a problem? _his brain supplies helpfully, and he swallows thickly and gives Miles a slow nod, a gesture for him to continue. 

"Can you cook?" Maybe this is a euphemism of some sort. He can only imagine the horrors the kitchen spatula has seen. "Only not a single one of us is any good, except Nicolette, but she's fiendishly hard to trap into the kitchen, so we've been forced to live off sandwiches and dreadful tins of _god knows what_. Do say you can cook, Ginger, or I fear we might starve and waste away." 

A sigh of relief falls from his mouth, before he lets it curve into a tentative smile. Miles is _serious_. "I haven't ever tried, I'm afraid. Don't see why I can't learn though." 

And that's how he finds himself living with Miles.

-

He starts with ratatouille. It seems simple enough. 

Miles finds him an hour later with flour stuck in his hair and a sooty smudge on his forehead and laughs until tears run down on his cheeks. 

Nicolette decides he’s too skinny anyway, and takes to cooking like a mad woman, as though Ginger must be starving at all hours. Miles steals forkfuls from his plate and thanks him with mirthful eyes. 

-

It takes months for Amélie to really open up to him, months of Miles taking him on long walks through idyllic countryside and of clandestine parties and empty bottles of brandy. It's just past a year of him staying with them when she signals to him to follow her, leads him away from the hushed conversation of the party and out to the back porch. Miles protests, but she silences him with a look, and Ginger wonders truly if she's the only person on the planet capable of such a feat. They sit pressed against each other on the thin ridge of the doorstep and she rolls him something far stronger than tobacco to smoke. The laugh he gets as he coughs and heaves the smoke from his lungs is positively musical. He thinks it's probably the first time he's heard Amélie laugh. 

"He loves you; you know." Her words are heavily accented, but there's no mistaking what she is saying. He blusters for a moment, taking another burning drag off the filter, his vision greying at the edges. He feels light, airy, and freed. The night is quiet. It won't tell his secrets.

"Well, I suppose, I've known Miles a while now, and, well, having a friendly face around and all, maybe I remind him of a better time, and I'm sure Miles loves all his fr-"

"_Non_." The glow from the lighter echoes off her sharp cheekbones. "_Non_, he _loves _you." The looks she gives him is positively expectant, and not completely unintimidating, and suddenly he rather wishes he had his wits about him. 

Nicolette. That's the name of Amélie's ... well. She's almost comically small next to her, petite and tiny, face soft and cherub-like. Amélie loves her with a fierceness he had only seen in the tigers in Ceylon, and he swallows thickly. She loves Miles like that too, albeit in a different way. 

"Oh." 

"_Oui_." It hangs in the air heavily between them, thicker than the coils of smoke twisting around them. He watches her pause, long fingers raising the smouldering paper to her lips. She exhales slowly, watching grey tendrils twist against the smattering of stars visible in the sky. "What are you going to do about it?" 

His head floats up up up with the smoke and he barely hears the question, too far away to hear her words. And then he comes crashing back down to Earth, shivering and jittering as the cold air nips at his hands and nose. He flicks the butt of the cigarette away, keeping his eyes trained on the dark silhouette of the apple tree at the bottom of the garden. 

"I- I'm not sure really. Never thought about it before." And wasn't that a lie. Miles' rouged lips and those bright blue eyes were intoxicating, but it wasn't right and it wasn't proper, so he pushed it all down deep and tried to think of Nina's soft brown curls that looked so remarkably similar to- "Do you- That is to say, do you think that he's, well ... I suppose I ought to ... Yes." 

She snorts, and the derision is palpable. "_Vous anglais_!" All of a sudden, her hands are at his collar, grasping too tight, the neat starched line of his shirt cutting in to his throat as she sneers over him, eyes lit with that same terrifying fury of a mother protecting her young cub. "Break his heart and I will break you. He has been through enough without you _peut tout foutre en l'air_." Her words jut out in a snarl before she lets go, standing swiftly and heading inside. 

Ginger sits there for a long moment, dazed, fingers still trembling from the shock. A familiar voice cuts through the air, and there he is, Miles, flashing him lids dusted with a soft grey as his gaze flutters over Ginger's no doubt dishevelled appearance. Gentle hands come up to adjust his tie and smooth his lapels and he wishes desperately that his traitorous pulse didn't jump quite so high when soft skin brushes over the hollow of his throat. Miles clicks his tongue, once, twice, and then satisfied with his work, sits back against the door frame, slinging his legs carelessly over Ginger's lap. 

"What did she do to you, poor thing?" The moonlight catches Miles' silver cigarette case, and he wordlessly accepts the one pushed into his hands, lighting it while a hand that doesn't belong to him smooths through his hair. "Oh, she is simply _beastly_ sometimes, you're positively in shock Ginger, darling. Say something, quick, or I shall have to fetch a doctor, and I doubt he'll be pleased at a summons this late into the night. Plus, it will mean breaking up our little _soirée _inside, which I don't think Victor will be pleased about at all. I was just about to play you know, a devilish little spirit whispered to me that it all needed lightening up, when I watched her drag you off. I'll give her a stern talking to tomorrow darling, it's far too late now, but she simply must stop scaring off all the lovely young men who keep me company." His eyes turn expectantly to Ginger's and he manages to croak out something that might serve as a reply. 

Miles' thighs are very warm over his. 

"I suppose you should take it as a compliment, really, she only scares the chaps she _approves_ of half to death. I dread to think what happens to the others." He wishes fiercely that he was sober, that Miles' lips didn't look quite so inviting, that Amélie had kept her unfounded thoughts to herself. 

As if Miles would ever love him? Plain, _boring_, old Ginger, who always wore matching suits and always had a boiled egg for breakfast and always turned up 5 minutes early for everything. He'd known even back in London that it was only at Nina's insistence that he got invited to anything, and when he did attend, he was always the quiet fellow in the corner who didn't dance. _Queer_, he'd been called once. It didn't matter what _Mr. Chatterbox_ had written about a tall, handsome soldier, just returned from the tropics with a fortune and as an _eligible_ _bachelor_, everyone was always disappointed when they met him. 

He's not even ginger. Just sort of a reddish-brown. 

And he _knew_ the sort of men Miles went for. He'd met Tiger, with his brooding good looks and leather jackets, a real-life Carey Grant, dashing and debonair. Everything that Ginger wasn't. She must have got it terribly wrong if she thought Miles would ever fancy him. 

There's a sharp prod in his side, and he blinks owlishly at the worried expression swimming back into view. "Ginger, you're being _awfully_ quiet. You'll give me the vapours in a moment if you don't liven up. I can't imagine _what_ she said to you. Darling, the _last_ thing I need tonight is-" 

"I'm going to retire." He stands up abruptly, taking a long drag of the burnt down gasper in his fingers before squashing it out on the rough brick. Miles lays sprawled in an ungainly heap from the sudden movement, staring up at him agog. "Sorry, old pal. I think I've had a bit of a turn. See you tomorrow." And with that he turns on his heel and retreats.

Sleep does not come easily.


	2. Where is my own true lover gone?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn't like the look that's slowly painting itself on Miles' features, wickedly mischievous, and likes the way Miles is leaning in even less, close enough that he all he can see is that playful expression, and pink, pink lips.
> 
> He's going to kiss him, Ginger realises belatedly. 
> 
> And then his brain catches up and it's all a rush of _not here, not like this, not now, not in front of everyone, not here, dear God please not here_. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so my life went to hell there for a good couple of months but im trying to get back into writing and hopefully at the very least, finishing this piece off! im posting what i already have for chapter 2 and extending this to give it a chapter 3! thank you all endlessly for your patience!!!!

Miles, who does not seem to understand the human need for rest, wakes him up at a god-awful early hour, and insists that they’re going to take advantage of the (obnoxiously) bright and (unfortunately) pleasant weather and spend the day outdoors. Ginger hides his bare torso and threadbare boxers and general  _ shame _ under the sheets of the bed he’d borrowed for the night from one of Miles’ disgruntled friends, as he barges in, announces they’re going for a picnic, and tells him to  _ jolly well hurry up _ , because it’s  _ almost noon already _ and he’ll  _ simply faint without food soon _ . 

Amélie’s words ring over and over in his head, and the thought of facing Miles almost causes Ginger to flee, shimmy out of the window and abandon all hope, but instead he drags his clothes on and tries to make himself look presentable with all the passion of a mausoleum statue. He avoids her eye contact as he slopes down the stairs, but she stops him, and for a brief moment, Ginger wonders what terrible atrocity she’s going to subject him to now, but she merely hands him a pair of sunglasses and eyes him meaningfully. He slides them on, grateful for some reprieve from the sun’s midday intensity, before heading through to the parlour, wincing at the shrill, piercing wail that emanates from the room. Miles is just stamping his foot as he enters, lips pouting churlishly, arms crossed like a petulant child. 

Dear god help them all, it was a tantrum. 

"Je t'ai dit, Victor, je voulais des  _ fraises _ ." He pauses for dramatic effect, and Ginger is eternally grateful this fruitless fury isn't aimed at him. "Qu'est-ce que c'est? Framboises.  _ Framboises _ , tu mies, à quoi servent-ils?" Victor, who Ginger had always presumed to be a rather stern and ill-mannered man, has at least the decent sense to look embarrassed, and doesn't complain at the thwack his arse receives to send him running. That leaves Ginger alone to face Wrath Incarnate. "And  _ you _ , you can't possibly assume I'm leaving the house with you in such a state. Have some  _ decency _ , Ginger, you look like the back end of a horse. And sober up, I'm not going outside with such a  _ leper _ , God forbid, someone might  _ see _ me with you." 

He belatedly thinks he ought to have told Miles that  _ leper _ was a little harsh, but instead he beats a hasty retreat. Victor offers him a clean shirt and an aspirin, and Ginger thinks he might actually be the pally sort after all. Either that or Miles' irascibility brought out a kinship in all those caught in a mile radius. 

The shower water is freezing and the shirt rather too large for him, but he tucks a flower in the breast pocket, dons his borrowed sunglasses once more and ventures back downstairs. Miles, he finds, is perched on a counter top, eating strawberries with a ferocious glee, and looking decidedly less  _ terrifying _ , and so Ginger ventures in, as cautious as the fly to the spider. 

His lips are sticky, stained, and his face placid with a cherubic expression. Another ripe fruit is raised to his mouth. 

"You must tell me to stop me eating these, Ginger, else we shan't have  _ any _ left for the picnic, and after all the trouble Victor went to, appropriating them." 

Ginger tells him no such thing. 

"A picnic? But- How on Earth did you- With the food shortages- I don't quite-" 

Miles taps his nose, his eyes narrowed impishly. "Mother doesn’t reveal her secrets. At least not all of them." Ginger thinks the village paper headline this evening will be rather  _ sensational _ . Something about vegetable thieves or mysteriously disappearing fruit, no doubt. 

“You- You shouldn’t have.” 

“Why not, Ginger? Because you’re still  _ worse for the wear _ after one of Amelie’s  _ special _ cigarettes?” Had he worked that out, from the smell, the dazed expression, the state of him in the morning, or had she told him? A cold wave of shock rushes down his limbs to tingle in his extremities. If she’d told him that, what else had she mentioned? Oh God.

If Miles does know, he doesn’t show it, slipping down from the counter with a graceful ease that matches the smile curving his lips. “Come along darling, follow Mother. And be a dear and carry the basket for me, won’t you? It’s just too heavy for little old me.” Numbly, he picks up the wicker hamper, tucking the half-eaten dish of strawberries in as an afterthought. Miles has already set off, is waving to him impatiently from the gate at the bottom of the garden, and Ginger can’t help hesitating, the urge to flee risen once more, before he takes a deep breath and steps out of the cool, dim kitchen, and into the intensity of the sun. 

-

"I found her in a cheap little nightclub in Paris when I first arrived, and I thought  _ what a waste _ ." Ginger makes a noise of vague agreement, hardly lifting his eyes from the pages of his book. A breeze lifts his fringe and scatters a few cherry blossoms into the untamed grass around them. Miles huffs, clearly bored of Ginger and the garden and the weather and of doing something quietly for a few hours, and swoons somewhere between melodramatic and graceful, head coming to rest on top of the words he's trying to read in his lap. He makes a small indignant noise, but Miles merely shushes him, and Ginger quietly acquiesces, slumping back against warm, worn wood and sweeping an errant curl from Miles' forehead, which makes his expression twist into something distinctly  _ smug _ . 

_ The cat that got the cream _ , Ginger would say, but he knows better. 

"She was a dancer, poor thing, all in corsets and lace, trying to eke out a living. It simply wasn't right, Ginger. Such a pretty darling, being gawped over by the most  _ fiendish _ of Parisian cretins. So I snatched her right out of there and bought her a new wardrobe too. Of course that's gone now, lost to the war like so many things, but she stayed with me, the dearest, and I'm so glad we're good friends, and not just because of the arrangement, you know." He's doing an admirable job of pretending to listen, and a far less convincing one of not looking at Miles' pinked cheeks and stained lips. 

He blinks, and again, and his brow threads together in confusion. "Sorry … Who are you talking about?" 

"Amélie, you old egg." The sigh he gets tells him he really  _ should _ have been paying attention, and Ginger can't help but smile as Miles' rolls his eyes fondly and sits up. "We should bring the wind-up gramophone out here you know. Or see if the radio is loud enough to be heard. I have the sudden urge to  _ dance _ ." He knows these  _ urges _ , these fleeting fancies of Miles’, here one minute and vanished the next. Nevertheless he indulges him, closing his book and standing with a hand proffered to the other man, who takes it delightedly, standing with a wicked smile. The way he presses himself against Ginger's body, leaning in until he can see every eyelash, the powder clinging to his cheeks, the sheen of rouge on his lips. He's glad when his hands move from memory, sliding to the small of Miles' back, until he baulks at the decided  _ intimacy _ of the motion. The last time he had- Well, the  _ only _ time really, he had, well … Nina. Nina after their wedding, all stiff and awkward as the Colonel looked on approvingly. When they posed for a photo, Nina wasn't smiling. 

Miles, by contrast is soft in his arms, heat radiating through their points of contact: hands, back, chests. Belatedly, Ginger realises he's singing, soft and breathy and being snatched away on the breeze faster than he can make out the words. He thinks he remembers it, faintly, from one of the parties he'd been dragged to, slower than the usual rag or jive, although his pulse doesn't seem to have cottoned on to the easy rhythm, hammering in his ears as they begin to sway gently. 

Cherry blossoms get caught in Miles' curls, and for one brief, faltering moment, Ginger almost reaches up and brushes them away,  _ almost _ cups his face,  _ almost _ leans in and … 

Miles' singing slows to a halt and his eyes flutter shut, head drifting down to rest on Ginger's shoulder. They don't stop moving, drifting to and fro, and it takes him too long to realise what the stuttering breaths and hot damp seeping through his shirt mean. Reddened eyes turn to him, streaks of black kohl winding down his cheeks. When his voice comes it's unlike Ginger has ever heard before, broken, small, so utterly  _ un-Miles _ , that it startles him. 

"They did such  _ terrible _ things. I'd thought France would be safe, and instead I ran into the jaws of the devil himself." A bitter laugh scrapes itself out of Miles' throat, and Ginger winces at the sound, harsh and wrong. "Killed poor Amélie's sister. Broke her neck when she wouldn't … when she …" The tears roll faster, and Ginger instinctively holds him tight, crushed protectively against his ribs, his beating heart, every part of him that is  _ alive _ and  _ burning _ with the memories of the dead, the wounded, the imprisoned. "I almost died, you know. Silly old Miles and his lack of indiscretion. Got me run out of one country, and nearly killed in another." Sobs wrack through him. Ginger's eyes burn, so he closes them tightly, buries his nose in feathery curls, breathes deeply and wishes desperately that the world were a less cruel place. "I'd go back, if I could. In an instant. Back to when we were carefree and our biggest concern was where we'd go between parties. Wouldn't you go back, Ginger? Wouldn't you give it all up for one more night of stupid,  _ frivolous _ fun?" 

He takes Miles' face in his hands, thumbs wiping away the coal black smudges from his cheeks. For the first time Ginger thinks he looks  _ tired _ . He thinks about the War, about Nina, sat at home with a child he knew wasn't his, about Symes and his 78 pounds and 16 shillings and tuppence. He thinks about France, about duck-egg berets and rouged lips, about how he's probably never been happier than with this odd rag-tag bunch of rejects. 

"No." He says, and means it. 

They stand there until it's dark and the wind picks up, sending cold fingers tickling down the length of his spine, and then they hurry indoors. It rains that night and Ginger's book lays damp and curled in the grass.

-

Sometimes, rarely, when Ginger closes his eyes, his mind takes him back to Ceylon. To the endless, stifling nights and the sticky smell of guava ripening on the trees. To the chafed finger tips that had gripped his hips and the firm lips that had swallowed him down.  _ Corporal Wellard _ . All bright eyed and smiles and inexperienced hands that had wandered and caressed.

_ Necessity _ , he'd called it back then. It was rough and brief and if anyone,  _ anyone _ , had found out they'd both have been dismissed on the spot, arrested for indecency. He doesn't think about how the water had rolled off tanned skin, tracing rivulets over toned muscle, how his eyes had followed them greedily, how he'd stifled his moans later that day. Nina had watched him from the nightstand. 

It  _ didn't  _ make him a pansy. 

-

"You are staring at him again,  _ mon amie _ ." Ginger starts at the sound of her voice, sending him jolting upright in the rickety excuse for a sun lounger they'd cobbled together from plank ends and an old sheet. He hides behind the rim of his glass, sipping with a cultivated air of nonchalance that Amélie sees through in an instant. 

He isn't of course. Staring, that is. Why would he be? How can she even tell where his gaze is behind the dark lenses of his sunglasses? Besides, even if he is,  _ everyone _ is staring at Miles. It's not as if it is Ginger alone. 

"I'm staring at my crossword, I'll have you know."

"And yet you haven't moved your pen in a quarter of an hour. It will take you a century to finish it like this,  _ Roux _ ." His lips twitch at the name. She refuses to call him Ginger like the others. She knows it irritates him. There's simply nothing  _ foxy _ about him. 

"Perhaps I'm just a bit … stuck." She snorts, stretching back in the grass next to him, long legs bronzing quickly as tropical rays caress her body. She reaches for the glass of punch tucked in the shade of his chair. 

"I do not blame you. Even I can see the appeal. One can still appreciate the human form,  _ non _ ?" 

"Now- now look here, I'm just sitting, trying to enjoy the paper, damnit, trying to do a puzzle in another language is difficult enough, and it's hardly my fault if Miles wants to make a scene, with all his- Well, his  _ proclivities _ , and it's not as if I'm staring any more than anyone else, damnit, you've even admitted to, well, you know,  _ staring _ , I suppose, and, damnit, there's nothing else to look at, now, is there?" His blustering has only made her more amused, and when she laughs there's just a hint of spite to it. She opens her mouth, clearly happy to keep prodding the bear (Ginger) in the cage (garden) with a large stick (innuendo). 

Miles, of course, picks that moment to come bouncing over, and Ginger decides to make himself very busy with the paper, very quickly. 

The problem is the weather. It reminds him of Ceylon, in a way, but drier, more  _ baking _ and less  _ steaming _ . The wireless tells them each night it's the hottest day of the year, breaking records, causing droughts continent wide. Even Ginger has been reduced to shorts and vests, slouching around in the shade and drinking iced punch to try and cool off. The shower water had stopped being cold a week ago. Miles, after too many glasses of no doubt spiked punch, had decided it was even too hot for clothes, and had been parading about all afternoon in nothing but a feather boa and one of Amélie's tight skirts, that clung to indecent parts of him … well, rather  _ indecently _ . No one knows where he's produced the boa from, and frankly Ginger is too afraid to ask.

“What are you two up to over here, hm? Nothing  _ horrid _ , I hope, that’s my  _ fiancée  _ you're looking after, Ginger.” The look Miles gives them seems to imply Miles would find it very entertaining if they  _ were _ indeed up to no good, and he wags a scarlet fingernail at them, still shimmying frantically with the quiet strains of something upbeat being squeezed out of the wind-up’s rusty trumpet. “It’s is too dull that you won’t dance with me Ginger, I’m awfully lonely all by myself. Don’t tell me the newspaper is more captivating than this?” There’s a sweep and a spin and a single black feather floats aimlessly down into his lap. Ginger keeps his eyes on it purposefully. 

“It’s too _hot _for dancing Miles.” He doesn’t mean it to come across quite as cross as he sounds, and for a moment he can see the pout forming, the eyes narrowing. “Besides, you’re much more captivating from a distance.” That’s as much he’ll say on the matter, as if his mind hadn’t been memorising sinuous pale curves, the sprinkle of dark chest hair, the taut calves spinning around and around and around. Miles at least looks placated by this, and Ginger goes to turn his attention back to the crossword. His first mistake. The second and third come in very quick succession after that, and involve Ginger taking his eyes off Miles long enough for the other man to sit down firmly in his lap, and Ginger wishing they both had rather more clothes on than they do at present. Which of course only serves to direct his mind to the pert arse currently pressed up against his … Well, his _unmentionables_. He opens his mouth to splutter out some sort of indignant response about _personal space_ and _common decency_ and _what will the neighbours think_, but then Miles settles back into him, head coming to rest on Ginger’s shoulder and parts of him _rubbing_ as he wiggles, and Ginger’s brain is forced to re-evaluate the need for speech when all of his willpower is suddenly directed towards not embarrassing himself publicly. He can’t imagine the response would be kind, all of them howling at him in laughter as Miles declares his shameful reaction with the charisma of a circus ringleader. So he’s trapped, between a rock and a _hard place_, doing his absolute damnedest to think about anything, _anything_, else. 

It isn’t easy. 

Miles  _ moves _ too much, every gesture sending vibrations and friction to  _ all _ the wrong places, and Ginger feels something long since ignored stir inside him. Old thoughts of Ceylon rise, unbidden, to add to his torment. He patently  _ ignores _ the looks Amélie is throwing his way, smug and clearly pleased with herself, and ignores some of the other gazes thrown their way around the garden: some interested, some bemused, and some very much bitter. Miles stretches languidly against him and Ginger sets his resolve assiduously, now adding a straining in his pants to the list of things he’s ignoring. It’s probably only minutes, but to Ginger it feels like a millenium, sitting there, fidgeting with his hands on a loose thread of the seat, waiting desperately for time to stop crawling by and Miles to find something more interesting to do than sunbathe and chat. When Amélie stands, Ginger almost sighs with relief, until he watches her saunter off, Miles clearly having no intention of following her. Oh  _ bugger _ . 

He sits very still, just how they'd been taught in Ceylon, if they were to ever see a krait or pit viper, and hopes to high heaven Miles will get bored. Miles merely settles himself more comfortably, and begins humming quietly, the sound reverberating through his chest and into Ginger's. Just when he thinks it can't get any worse, Miles' fingers begin to trail over his skin, drawing imaginary lines and tapping down the soft length of the thighs he's nestled between.

His voice, when he finds it, comes out barely as a croak. "I- I say, Miles, what on Earth are you doing?" That causes him to startle, hands flying to his chest as he jolts, and Ginger grits his teeth at the electric frisson shooting up his spine. 

"Heavens, darling, I thought you'd fallen asleep!" There's an awkward moment of shuffling about, trying to get into a more agreeable position made nearly impossible by the sun chair, and when they're finished, the wood groans ominously. Miles is curled over him, legs slung to one side and head still cushioned on Ginger's shoulder. "I always thought you'd be less comfortable, Ginger, but I must say you've quite exceeded my expectations." He squirms, as if to prove a point, and Ginger twists his head to throw him a look. He can only hope it says  _ listen here Miles, you can't just go sitting in people's laps and expect pleasant conversation _ . 

"Right." 

Miles charges on. "You're the bony sort, aren't you, all  _ sharp _ and  _ long _ . At least that's what I'd expected, darling." Ginger doesn't grant him a reply, as he can't muster anything dignified to say at all. Victor is eyeing them with a bitter resentment. "Have you ever thought about shaving your moustache?" 

"Can't." Perhaps he doesn't mean to be as brusque as he comes across, but it's rather sore spot Miles is touching upon. He can't escape the questions, just as many when he has the moustache as without. "I have a birthmark. Damned ugly thing. Right on my lip. Therefore, moustache." 

A gentle thumb appears at the edge of his mouth, running over that little spot where his hair doesn't quite cover the reddish-purple stain blooming up into his skin. Ginger turns his head sharply, and Miles' hand, fortunately, drops away. 

" _ I _ think it's just the sweetest thing. And you can't really believe a silly little blemish like that could possibly make you less  _ handsome _ , Ginger?" He doesn't like the look that's slowly painting itself on Miles' features, wickedly mischievous, and likes the way Miles is leaning in even less, close enough that he all he can see is that playful expression, and pink, pink lips. "You should shave it, darling, facial hair just isn't the fashion these days. Even in France." He's still leaning in somehow, impossibly close,  _ dangerously _ close.

He's going to kiss him, Ginger realises belatedly. 

And then his brain catches up and it's all a rush of  _ not here, not like this, not now, not in front of everyone, not here, dear God please not here _ . 

He lurches back as Miles tries to cross the last inch between them, and only vaguely registers an awfully loud  _ crack _ before there's a drop and a thud and an awkward  _ something _ digging into him that hadn't been a moment ago, the tickle of grass on his calves, the sprawl of Miles over him, scattered limbs and feathers. The chair, or what's left of it, is equally scattered around them, reduced to nothing more than the pile of planks it had been that morning. 

Miles is blinking at him with wide, shocked eyes, and then he tilts his head back and laughs. Perhaps it's the punch, or the heat, or the sight of Ginger akimbo in the lounger's wreckage, but he laughs, tears brimming in his eyes as he quivers and shakes. And after a moment, Ginger does too, dazed at the hilarity of it all. Amélie appears to fish them out of the splinters and loose nails, and Miles drifts away after a moment, happy to go back to the music, to Victor's concerned gaze. 

When Ginger slinks away inside, no one says anything.

-

The sharp glide of the razor runs down his cheek, removing any trace of of the stubble that had prickled his skin overnight. Foam gathers in the sink, clouding the water, streaking down spotless white ceramic. He pauses at the edge of the moustache, silver glinting next to the soft auburn strands. 

He should stop. He always stops, always leaves the neat little patch of hair squarely above his lip, carefully covering that blasted port wine stain. 

_ I think it's just the sweetest thing _ , echoes his mind unhelpfully, sounding for all the world like Miles. 

Damnit. 

His eyes close when he finally stops hesitating, drags the sharp blade across the skin, feeling it tug against the longer hairs. No going back now. Through half-closed lids he cleans up the stays, watching the ruddy patch become more exposed with every pass of the razor. Fingertips prod at it, irritated that it had to be him, had to be  _ there _ , but there's nothing to hide it with any more.

He's nervous, when he steps out of the bathroom, irrationally so. No one bats an eyelid at his newly bald lip, or at the now exposed strawberry mark marring the skin. 

_You can't really believe a silly little blemish like that could possibly make you less_ _handsome. _

Miles won't remember, doesn't remember, judging by the lack of comment, but he still lets out a delighted giggle when he sees Ginger's bare face, presses the lightest kiss to the skin there before fluttering away again. 

He clears his throat and goes to see what's for breakfast. 

-

After a while, Ginger starts to realise there are a good deal of rumours about  _ him _ circulating about the town. It's not that he hadn't expected them, due to his association with Miles and his  _ cirque des monstres _ , as the local townspeople  _ affectionately _ knew them as. It's just he didn't think they'd be quite so … Well,  _ outrageous _ . Ginger's life in the hands of suspicious officials and worried mothers had become far more exciting than his own, a tale of debauchery and sin that would have sold well, had he the talent to write it down. 

It becomes increasingly obvious at the Party. It’s a _ Miles _ party, and therefore, despite the town’s evident dislike him and his little retinue, absolutely  _ everyone _ turns up. Ginger barely recognises most of them, but makes himself unobtrusive in a corner and watches Miles flit about, ever the congenial host. If anyone could recreate the decadence of pre-war London in a tiny French cottage, almost a decade later, it was Miles, and he nearly had. Not quite, but most people wouldn't know the difference. As someone turns up the gramophone volume again, and he sips on a lukewarm flute of champagne, he really thinks Miles has outdone himself. God only knows how he managed to appropriate so much food and alcohol despite the extensive rationing. Actually, God probably didn’t  _ want _ to know. 

He’d barely been able to say a word edgewise to Miles all day, on account of the tizzy he had worked himself into over everything being  _ perfect _ . Ginger had merely been waved off and sent to the kitchen to assist Nicolette in making canapés, before everyone realised it was a much better idea to have Ginger as far away from any form of food preparation as he could get. So he’d spent most of the afternoon wandering around rather helplessly, only of use when something needed to be pinned in an awkwardly high position, in accordance with Miles’ instructions. 

He was a different man now, all smiles and laughs now that everything had indeed gone according to his stringent plan. A cacophony rolled thunderously out of every room, tables and chairs cleared for dancing, everyone on their best behaviour and most more than a little worse for the wear, after yet another case of champagne had been miracled out of the basement and opened. Ginger watches Amélie empty a bottle of gin into the punch bowl, and makes a mental note to avoid it. 

It’s not that he isn’t having  _ fun _ per se, but there’s an awful lot of memories dug up by the whole affair that are rather unsavoury. Not to mention the hushed conversations scattered throughout the house, the ones that always end with eyes flicked in his direction, and an  _ awful _ lot of giggling from the younger girls. It’s enough to send any man running. And so he makes to escape, to head out of the smoky room to the fresh air of the garden, quietly hoping no one else had decided venture out, and that Ginger could steal away a moment of quiet for himself. Of course, just as he stands, a rather  _ pompous _ lady bustles through, colliding with Ginger hard enough that it spills her glass of wine over him, a deep claret stain quickly spreading itself over the front of his crisp white shirt. He tries stuttering out some platitudes, and quickly realises there’s no hope of appeasing her. She’s been making comments about him all evening, and this is the final nail in the coffin. 

Just as he thinks all hope is lost, Miles appears, fresh glass of wine in hand, and just the right words to calm the lady, who he sends bustling off in Amélie’s direction with the promise of  _ vol-au-vents _ and chicken liver  _ pâté _ . 

He thanks him with a broad smile that only widens at Miles' impish expression, eyes flickering down sheepishly as a painted fingernail prods at his chest gently. 

"You  _ do _ enjoy making a scene, don't you darling?" A hand on his elbow guides him through the house, before he's pulled into an unfamiliar room. "And I suppose you haven't  _ any _ idea who that woman was."

"As a matter of fact, not a clue." 

He takes the opportunity Miles' laugh affords him to glance around, and quietly realises this must his bedroom.  _ Miles' _ bedroom. That is, if the large bed with soft covers has any say in the matter. There's a photo in a silver frame on the dresser, blurry from revelry, and Ginger recognises most of the smiling faces in it. His heart sinks as he sees Nina, arms slung loosely around Miles, head thrown back with laughter. 

"She's  _ Madame Piernot _ . You know, that wet sock who likes to know everything about everyone's business, and doesn't mind how far she has to stick her nose in to find it out. I think if she had the chance she'd throw me in jail just for rouging my cheeks.  _ Beastly _ woman." Miles' expression tells Ginger he's likely given everyone at the party a jolly good laugh at her expense, and he suddenly feels quite proud of himself. His chest puffs itself out accordingly, and Miles shoots a bemused glance at him. "Now come on, shirt off. We can't be away from the party too long, or tongues will wag."

"Shirt off?" 

Miles looks at him as though he's just become  _ particularly  _ slow, and repeats himself, drawing out the syllables as if speaking to an infant. "Yes, darling.  _ Shirt off _ . You haven't forgotten the wine stain have you?" 

"N-No, but- Well my room's only a few doors down, and I have plenty of shirts, I could just-" 

"Don't be  _ foolish _ Ginger, you can't go back like that now. Besides Mother was going to work her  _ magic _ and see if she could save the poor dear. It's the only decent thing in your wardrobe after all." He opens his mouth to argue, but Miles descends upon up with a tutting tongue and fingers that start undoing his buttons with a practised ease. Ginger doesn't think about where he's practised. 

"Alright, alright, I'm not a child, damn it." He pulls back, spinning around to at least try and gain some modesty back from this strange series of events, fingers tripping in their haste to get his shirt off.

"Has the wall become very interesting in the last minute? Darling, don't be shy, I've seen far worse." He doesn't like Miles' tone, not one bit, so Ginger stays facing the wall, and waits for the next scathing comment. "Alright, dear, have it your way, but it will make it terribly difficult picking you out something to wear." 

"What?" Miles' laugh echoes off the corners. 

"Ginger you didn't think I'd send you out looking like that, did you?" What exactly had he thought? That Miles could rescue his shirt in a mere matter of minutes and have it stain free and crisply ironed ready for him? Christ he was an idiot. "You'll fit my size, I expect, although it'll be short in the body, but that's your own fault for being so contrivedly  _ stringy _ ." He turns, as if to argue, only to have Miles push a dress shirt into his hands. "Here, try this old thing on." 

Miles' gaze raking down his body makes Ginger's fingers very uncooperative, and he wrestles with tiny buttons until one by one they're pushed through, secured into their holes, brushing out the creases and tucking the tails into his slacks. A fine pattern is woven through the fabric, barely translucent stripes racing parallel down the length of his torso, much more fashionable than anything he'd ever hope to wear, and yet subtle enough to not look strange. It  _ is _ rather short, but Miles looks exceptionally pleased with himself, and gestures for Ginger's hand. He gives it over without argument, and watches as the other man rolls up his sleeve with a surgeon's precision, tucking the cuffs at the elbow. He's moved on to the other side by the time Ginger realises how  _ close _ they are, virtually toe to toe. He can count individual eyelashes, long and feminine, can see the purse of Miles' lips as he fusses with the last turn of fabric, can see the fine laugh lines scattered at the corners of his eyes.  _ A sign of a life well lived _ , his mother used to say. 

"There, much better. I've always wanted to see you like this,  _ Hollywood Casual _ I call it. It rather suits you darling." No one's ever told him he's suited anything before. "I'm afraid you'll look like a bit of an arse, wearing anything of mine will cause that darling, because I always look like an absolute  _ twit _ . I think people are just too polite to say it." It startles Ginger, just how  _ insecure _ Miles sounds. It doesn't suit him, this sudden diffidence, but the longer they stand there, the more Ginger realises this isn't one of Miles' funny turns, the little attention seeking phrases, the pouting lips and wringing hands. Good God, he actually feels this way.

"Now listen here Miles, you're not a  _ twit _ , damn it. You're a solid chap, and a good pal, and well, I don't think I've ever had so much fun as when I'm with you. I don't think a  _ twit _ would have so many friends, or throw such damn good parties, or put up with dull old plank like me for so long. You're probably the only person in Europe who still gives a damn about me, and I'll not have you criticising yourself for just … Well, being  _ you _ ." 

Silence hangs heavily between them, and Ginger thinks he really should have shut up, rather than letting all that spill out of him. Miles' eyes glisten, thick with tears ripe and ready to fall. The moment stretches on and on and on, and Ginger rather distantly registers that he's leaning in, closing the gap between them. He closes his eyes, as if to spare himself from watching whatever foolish thing is about to occur, whatever  _ thing _ between them has bubbled over and can't be ignored anymore. A soft hand strokes down his cheek. 

"Thank you, darling." A nervous laugh follows the hushed words, then there's silence, and then the door closes firmly. Ginger cracks his eyes open, only to find the room empty, nothing left of Miles save for the last wafts of cologne left in the air. 

He straightens out his shirt in the corner mirror, and avoids catching his own gaze. He's frankly terrified of what might be lurking there.


End file.
